


The point of it all

by Meldrop



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguity, F/M, Hannibal is a Mystery, Infidelity, Loneliness, M/M, Mutilation, Office, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pretentious, Romance, Sex, Slow Burn, Will is emotionally repressed, dreamy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:13:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29310123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meldrop/pseuds/Meldrop
Summary: The first time Will meets Hannibal, his heart goes like mad.
Relationships: Molly Graham/Will Graham, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 53





	1. The Button

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Please don't take my sunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14004846) by [Tommykaine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tommykaine/pseuds/Tommykaine). 



> Expect it to get weird and dark and romantic.  
> Thank you for reading.  
> The plot of this fic significantly diverges from the fic that inspired me (linked above)

When Will was ten, he caught a Brook trout, out on a lake near where his father had lived. He knew because of its orange belly he'd seen in library books. He'd never caught one before, and something was terrifying about seeing its body slap about in his grip, its black, wide eyes, its wide mouth, slimy and sinew, trying to breathe back in the water that Will had pulled it out of as he watched, paralysed. He wanted to tell his father about his first catch, but instead, he whispered sorry to the Brook fish as it swam away. He didn't go back to his bedroom until he stopped crying. Will didn't eat fish for a year until his father had started to threaten him with bed and no dinner. Will conceded and when the hunger was too much, ate an orange-bellied Brook trout on the anniversary of his Mother's death. When his father showed him how to suck the tastiest part of the meat from the tail, Will thought, how can death taste so good. 

  
Molly likes to give him head on Sunday mornings. She says lazy wake-ups turn her on. Their window faces the rising sun and fills the room with so much light his eyes hurt, and his skin prickles heat when her tongue is soft in his slit. When he is just about to come, she stops and laughs and then over and over until Will wants to cry and beg. It's what she wants, and he gives it to her, her name, breaking it, breath crushed as she bites down on the inside of his thigh. He likes it like that because time drags along with his pleasure, slow and limitless. It's tragic how the body doesn't understand that, how it counts down the seconds to a coming climax and ending it all.

The first time Molly made him come, it was in the poetry section of the library. He didn't mean to and tried to hide it from her as she licked the sweat off his neck. Five weeks later, they were caught with hands down pants, and Molly was fired. She was furious, called her manager a cunt and a pervert, all in front of the kids at storytime. Her loudness, her bravado always bowled over Will. She could scream every lyric to all her favourite songs and never get the tune quite right, but that didn't matter as long as the windows were down and heads turned.

The first time he made her come, she cried. An uncontrolled sob, holding on to him naked and wet. She always got so wet. When he makes her cry like that, when she can't speak and turns to snotty laughter, Will feels like punching through solid rock. But he has never punched a thing.

He reads library books as she works in the afternoon, taking peeks over her shoulder when he goes to refill their coffee. He'll pause at a funny turn of phrase and quote it back to her, or she'll ask him to read a whole chapter aloud because she remembered liking that particular one. He'll do the voices and pay attention to pace. He treats each story like poetry, and she'll laugh at him when he can't get an accent right. He offers to change her water when it gets all brown. Offers her head under the watercolours and parchment and illustrated beetles on her desk by the window. By dinner, her fingertips are coloured indigo, and Will's cheek is smudged with ink.

They eat take out, taking turns between Indian and Tex Mex because they don't have to cook for Wally. He stays over at a school friend's every weekend and comes back home Monday afternoon. Michael's parents don't seem to mind; they cook vegan and smell like crushed herbs and wear their grey hair way too long. Both of them.

Will makes love to Molly after they shower. He always starts there, touching her with bubbles, then slipping inside with two fingers. She pulls him in, grabs his hands and puts them where she wants, on her chest and neck. His erection is painful because she won't touch it yet. Pillows soak through, and hair dries as she tells him to fuck up into her harder and when it's intense she laughs this silent laugh, and she shakes, and all he can do is look on in awe, catching his breath.

"Aren't you tired yet?" he asks her when she goes back to, ‘An Illustrated Guide To African Insects'. She isn't, happy to work through the night. He falls asleep with a lingering kiss on his forehead and a crippling fear that tomorrow will be a horrible bore.

Leaves break apart under rolling tires. At the crossroad by the evangelical church Will almost runs over a squirrel. He is hyperventilating; eyes closed imagining the crush of its fragile skeleton, the smell of hot tar is the smell of loneliness: it's last memory. He doesn't start the car up again until he stops crying. The car park is empty. It takes another half hour before another soul clocks-in. He is the first to turn on the lights, and in the silence, Will likes to imagine a world abandoned, leaving behind swivel chairs and unkept kitchenettes. He spins and spins until his belly leaps, and he gets to feel something other than dread.

He doesn't want to say goodbye to Beverly because she laughs when he whispers to her, "don't leave me here with Brian". Until this year she had found her true calling as a medical examiner, won't stop till she achieves the dream, so she has to go back to school, full time in some other state. He'd genuinely resent her for it if she weren't so happy about it. "Well if I find his body washed up on some riverbank, you'll be my first suspect", she smiles back and hugs him. He plans to tell her that she has been his very best friend, only friend. He decides to say to her on Friday.

The first time he made her laugh, Brian was halfway to fingering a young woman in the corner of a bar wearing a Metallica t-shirt. "Is he always like this?" Beverly asked morbidly curious. "Brian's dick could be ken-doll smooth, and he'd still manage to dry hump every girl in Baltimore", Will said drinking the last of his whiskey.

"He hasn't tried it on me, thank god".

"That's because you're legal".

Beer snorted out her nose. He wasn't even trying to be funny.

Will imagined Beverly gone. He felt like hurling a brick through every single state of the art computer screen. At the corner of his eye, Molly was laughing. He didn't know why. "Hey, you okay?" She asks during a commercial. McDonald's has a new burger, three patties and maple bacon butter and cheese stuffed buns, deep-fried. It was all perfect and glistening, and Will almost licked his lips. "You think the CEO of McDonald's eats McDonald's?" He asks.

Molly looks at the screen with a creeping sickness, "abso-fucking-lutely not", she yells just to make her point. Then he laughs.

Friday evenings are always for drinking. After work calm that tastes of good whiskey. But this Friday is for sloppy, hesitant goodbyes. Beverly stayed for a few because her flight leaves early in the morning. He never got to tell her. Instead, he hugged her and told her he hoped her plane wouldn't crash and she took it like she always takes it: with affection. "Will do Willy", she said back because she knows Will hates it.

His heartbeat slows time as it ticks closer to another paper-cut-wet-the-skin-morning-coffee-so-it-stings-a-little-Monday. Brian drinks beer; a forehead on the table amount, and it drives a needle through Will's brain: Drunk Brian always needs a drive home, and Will has a car. He'll always make sure Brian gets to his parent's condo. He stays in the detached flat, rent-free, so he never wakes them over clumsy trips into his Mother's daffodils. The first time Brian got drunk in front of Will, he took a girl behind the bar and pissed inside the condom.

Will wants Brian to slow down as he orders another Whiskey, so he can keep forgetting inevitable no-best-friend-Beverly-Mondays and smile.

He smiles at a stranger and says hello.

"Are you alone?" The man asks. He has dark eyes and a pleasant voice, but Will can barely hear it.

"Waiting for work- a work friend", Will stumbles on words when he's tipsy and enjoys the wobble of the boat and the wave of the dark water.

"Do you mind if I join you?" the man has his hand on the back of the chair, waiting; There's hair on his knuckles. Will smiles up at him, says why not? The stranger smiles back, a small one that shines out through his eyes as if lit from within.

"What are you drinking?" he asks, blinks slow and Will wonders if he finally managed to suspend time.

Will can't seem to remember the whiskey's name but says, “I always get the same", his tongue just numb.

"Do you mind if I try?" And Will laughs when the man takes his glass and sips before he can answer. Go right ahead.

"Peppery", he says considerate, holding the flavour and keeping it. Will can't taste it anymore and says, “It's my regular".

"Ever try anything new?"

"I always get the same".

Brian comes back from the bathroom and introduces himself as Brain. This is usually the point Will decides Brian is past his limit. The point Will ends the night. Instead, he pushes the bowl of nuts toward Brian.

"Hannibal," the man says, and Brian goes in for an awkward hug. It isn't reciprocated. Will likes him already.

"Hannibal ad portas", Will laughs, butchering his Latin and Brian has no idea what is happening. It makes Will feel as ancient as the great general, that only he can remember words echoed that far back in time. He sweeps away the broken peanut shells and gets some on his shoe, dust on the worn leather.

"Do you fear me, then?" Hannibal says. Will looks up at Hannibal smiling, too drunk to feel fear. "No", he smiles back, "you seem like the least, terrifying, creature imaginable", and he says that to the way Hannibal laughs, it is gentle and tame. Nothing about him is wild. Hannibal pats him on the back like an old friend and buys the next round. Brian decides Hannibal is his new best friend. Except Hannibal sits back down right next to Will.

"What is this?" Will asks, taking a small, timid sip of something that looks red in the light and tastes of orange peel when squeezed between fingertips.

"Aliquid novi", Hannibal's eyes focus in on Will and Will alone, the room narrowed to a moment, throat warmed by liquorice, salt melts along the rim, dripping clocks. It's tragic when there is not a drop left to drink.

They talk about the ring on his finger. "Her name is Molly," Will says, drunk and feeling the love of heat in his chest. It makes him smile without even trying and Hannibal crowds into him like a fire.

"The flower of the mountain".

"With the rose in her hair", Will says with recognition, excitement a drum, pat-a-pat attention rapt.

"And then I asked him with my eyes", Hannibal carries on, a soliloquy in fragments.

"To ask again yes".

"And his heart was going like mad".

Will laughs and ends with "I said yes I will yes. I was obsessed with that book", words fading as he remembers weathered pages, dog-earred and gnarled at the bottom of his book bag.

"Does she sing too, your Molly?"

"All the time. She’s terrible".

Brian falls over a woman's bag on another trip to the bathroom. Her things go everywhere. She yells at Brian when he makes a joke about the extra-large condom. Will decides to get him into a taxi, gives the driver the address just as a cold wind picks up. Will stands on the sidewalk, waiting until the car turns the corner and the waves feel crushing.

"Need a ride?" Hannibal says, sounding close by.

"I have a car. My wife needs it tomorrow", and now he feels seasick, time ready to speed up through his throat.

"I can drive if you like?" It sounds like a question, yet Hannibal takes the keys from Will's hand like a sudden wind, and the tide takes him home.

Will hates the song on the radio but doesn't say as Hannibal taps along the wheel. Will doesn't mind that, the tapping, like raindrops, like soft things and clicking in his ears, a candy-coated tongue, rice bubbles in milk, fish fighting the current. 

Will wakes up, everything embalmed in quiet, forgets he is sitting in his car, tired and sober with a stranger. This stranger with a strange name smiles his small smile and Will, all curious about happiness, wonders what makes a smile like that. Hannibal points past Will's shoulder and asks, “This is your house, yes?"

Will's neck is stiff; it hurts to turn his head. All the lights are off, and Wally's window is open, and Will hopes he isn't too cold the goose.

"Thanks".

"Not at all". Hannibal is a still lake bringing with him mist, everything unseen but felt in the dark." Tonight… I was glad to make your acquaintance Will", Hannibal says and before Will can say goodbye, takes his leave and walks through the night, wisps through the clouds clinging to his grey overcoat. Will hopes he won't get caught in the rain. He closes his eyes for a moment and feels his shoulders grow damp, and his toes freeze while wet socks hang by a fireplace.

Will tries to carry the quiet with him. Winston is asleep in the study. Up the stairs, he avoids the creaky step at the very top. He doesn't flush the toilet and is relieved when Molly doesn't wake up as he lays down. She snores only when she is exhausted, sometimes even talks; mumbles like a baby or speaks words without meaning.

Will has a dream that night. He floats, ear canals waterlogged then catching the sound of the air. It starts to rain; drums against his naked belly. Fingertips at his shoulders, tapping out a rhythm, words and letters getting wet. They are ink stains. Strings are plucked underwater turning to seaweed and waving along the spine of his naked back. Water turns white, drips from a pinched nipple. He won't remember it once he wakes up.

Molly likes to give him head on Sunday mornings. And with his eyes closed to the morning sun, warming the side of his face, Will longs for night, infinite and unknowable. He comes with his palms digging into his eye sockets.

On Tuesday Will gets a video call from Beverly.

"Your plane didn't crash!" Will says beaming.

"Hey to you too asshole".

"I beg you to come back; Brian won't stop talking about Game of Thrones".

"Everyone likes Game of Thrones".

"I'm not everyone".

"I'm sorry my mistake, you are not an asshole you are a pompous asshole".

"Fine, don't come back for all I care. I'll find someone else to- "

"I know you miss me".

"Yeah, how's that?"

"Cause you won't say it".

"... I'm glad your plane didn't crash".

"I miss you too, buddy. Don't forget about me".

"Impossible".

Wally has stopped eating dinner at the table. "He should eat with us," Will says, a harsh whisper under the blare of a droning guitar.

"Why?" Molly says, cutting into a steak, it's juice red.

"It feels like we're the help and he's the young prince".

Molly laughs into her wine glass, "God Will, you just figuring that out now?"

"Figuring out I'm maybe the court jester".

"Sweetie", she says, soothing with a cheeky hug around his shoulders like a monkey who won't leave you alone. "He's a teenage boy. It'd be weirder if he didn't eat in his room. I think I'd put him in therapy if he started washing the dishes".

Will remembers his father falling asleep after dinner, and fingers smelling of dishwater. He wasn't even ten years old yet.

Molly starts talking about a client, but Will stops listening. Thoughts stick on the taste of the meat, unresolved. He's bloated with unspoken things that sit inside him where the rest of his dinner should be.

"Earth to Will", Molly says collecting their plates, "you hear me?"

Will says yes and that she sounds like a nightmare and Molly laughs, "You're cold, Graham!" He has no idea what she is talking about.

That night he dreams of falling and slipping his head of a mossy stone, blood in his hair and he can no longer recognise his face, a mask of moss, bones are rock, hair is grass, and his blood dilutes down the stream. He won't remember it when he wakes up.

All Mr Sutcliffe cares about is golf. The first time Will shook his hand hello, he kept asking Will if he liked to golf. He didn't. Still doesn't but whenever Mr Sutcliffe brings it up Will will pretend, will look up who won what tournament to have something else to talk about at dinner parties. When Mr Sutcliffe has anything else to say it's usually with the banality of stale crackers left forgotten on a plate. It's a struggle to focus on talk of the weather, data sets, profits, and bottom line when your boss is the most boring man alive.

Except for today. Mr Sutcliffe brings with him echoes of a dream, mist and magic. Behind his stifled good mornings stands an apparition. It's uncanny. Will finds it hard to breath when the air is that heavy. Hannibal is smiling, waiting for Mr Sutcliffe to introduce him.

"We've met", Hannibal says to Will. And as Will stands, he takes in this stranger with the strange name who didn't just vanish into the night never to be seen again. Of course, he is real.

"Old friends?" Mr Sutcliffe is terrible at friendly, is highly skilled in passive aggression and unremarkable smiles, but they all play along anyway. Will stands to shake Hannibal's hand. "A run-in really. I'm new to the neighbourhood and wanted to find a friend", Hannibal says with great warmth, his expression not afraid of the impossible.

"Lecter here will be replacing Katz. I'm sure he will be a great addition. We are very excited" Mr Sutcliffe says stiff as a board. "Graham is one of our most talented analysts; I'm sure you'll be well looked after". And then like the dull, little shit he is he steals away the brightest moment of his day, and Will is left standing, stranded and willing for the endless night.

"The weirdest thing happened today", Will says to Molly. She is washing octopus under the tap while he peels potatoes.

"You tar and feather Bossman?"

"I wish".

"Film it when you do, please".

"I promise. We met Beverly's replacement".

"Oh no, are they a Brian 2.0?"

"Turns out he was the one who drove me home the other week from the Bar".

"Vaguely European guy?"

"Yeah, he is starting tomorrow. At first I thought he wasn't gonna remember me, but he did".

Why would he forget you?"

"I don't know. Some people might find it awkward even to bring up".

"But he didn't?"

"No. He was cool about it".

"That's because you are very memorable, my sweet man". That makes him smile.

Molly fills a pot with water and waits for it to boil. She is listening to his work talk but distracted, running around the kitchen trying to remember where she put the dishcloth, the one with the lion, a hole where its mouth should be. Will finds it between the toaster and the kettle. To make her laugh, he holds the corners up and bears his teeth through the worn fabric, and growls the growl of the Rag Lion.

"You are the least, terrifying creature imaginable", she smiles, wiping black ink down her apron, then with a butchers knife chops off clean the head of the octopus. 

Brian keeps asking Hannibal stupid questions. Nagging about the Friday night social, that Hannibal must come along as they are now the new official trio and that he won't take no for an answer. He'll make sure to tell Beverly, that Brian has with most enthusiasm, replaced her.

Hannibal is all easy yeses and fondness, and it's distracting, and Will can't not listen to everything he says. He is methodical in the way he types. He points out errors with calm and is far less talkative than Brian is. He tells them very little. He tells them that he moved from France only a few weeks ago and worked for a bank for many years until an investigation. He relocated to the US because he had never been. "I have a place now by the river," he says, keeping his eyes on his screen.

A week after he started working Will notices Hannibal smells of tobacco. On break, he goes out on the balcony by the fire stairs, and one day Will decides to join him.

Brian looks shocked, “I didn't know you smoked?" He says as if every facet of Will is so easily read as if Brian knows him entirely and couldn't possibly hold any secrets of his own. He laughs it off but hides a real smile down corridors.

"What do you smoke?" It's sunny outside, and it makes his eyes squint.

Hannibal smiles too and knows what to say back, "I always smoke the same". They are long and thin and smell peculiar. More than just tobacco, more like a forest fire. Then in a silent offer, he completes the moment, the memory folding into itself, a funny déjà vu. Will takes the cigarette into his mouth. It's wet, Hannibal's wetness on his lips and the smell of him in his lungs.

"Smoky", Will says passing it back. His chest burns throat dry. Hannibal looks at him, but Will wants to turn away from the sun, it's too bright. Then Hannibal takes a step forward, an eclipse and the whole world goes dark. Will knows never to look at an eclipse. Fingers tap at his lapel as he hears the words as if right in his ear, “there's ash on your shirt". In the quiet and the calm Hannibal stays, keeps Will in his shade.

"Thanks", he barely manages to speak. He looks down at a smudge on his shirt, and Hannibal's finger, circling the button just below it. Will could have stayed in his shade until it turned to night.

"Will?" He hears from the corridor "I need you to check something". Hannibal steps back, stubs out the cigarette and smiles, "back to work?"

That night when Molly is in bed, Will can't sleep. It's close to three in the morning. There is a brilliant solitude here when it is the middle of the night, and Will doesn't want to let it pass by as he sleeps. Instead, with great care, he creeps slowly and quietly to the laundry basket in the bathroom. The moon is almost full, incandescent and blue. Will takes his shirt from the basket and puts it on. There just under his nose is still the smell of burning pine. He stares at himself as if he is not himself, the moonlight soft on his cheek, his finger going in circles, the smudge just above wondering what Hannibal finds so fascinating about a button.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal ad portas - Hannibal at the gates  
> Aliquid Novi - something new
> 
> Hannibal and Will quote from James Joyce’s, Ulysses  
> Molly bloom is the name of a character in the book. I had to change a line because she doesn’t paint but sings opera.


	2. Brian the Ungreatful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will may have some misplaced anger.
> 
> A very brief mention of suicide.

Water rises, and pebbles click. Under a giant tree, there were always beetles of red and green, a shine like oil. And at night, lying on his back, the damp grass swayed above him, an earthly bed. He stayed up till dawn and with one eye shut, imagined his fingertips pushing the sun back down behind the water, like some god—His computer crashes. It's 6 in the evening, everyone else has gone home, and the horror is sinking further and further inside him. Starring at a blank screen is a pointless use of time but an hour has already passed. Now it's not just a useless object but embodies all of Will resentment. Will closes his eyes and at that moment imagines wires and motherboards as veins and connective tissue, gutting it all out with a blade, grinding its plastic bones to nothing. He gets back home late, and the night isn't long enough to hold him in its arms.

He receives an email from Mr Sutcliffe the next day:

_Graham,_

_As long as it gets done.   
_ _We have presentations at the end of the month._

Will becomes a smoker without needing to buy any smokes. He'll wait for Hannibal to look at him, and ask, "would you like a break?" and every time, Will nods his head yes and follows him out onto the balcony by the fire stairs. They take turns from a single cigarette. Will can't stop drawing in deep and full just to feel something other than dismay inside his chest.

"I can help you finish it", Hannibal says. He is looking to Will with this expression that seems to hold all the answers to all his problems.

"Thank you, but I'll be fine".

"I insist", Hannibal takes back the cigarette. His eyes are lidded as the smoke slowly rises and Will; surrounded by that smell, burning woods, black trees and ashen leaves.

"You'd have twice the workload", Will says, keeping his hope wrapped up in a box.

"Then you can help me also", Hannibal gives Will the last few puffs, a gift between thumb and forefinger that tastes like gratitude, smoking out all that useless anxiety. "I was told on good word that you'd look after me Will", and he says it like the way smoke would sound if it had a voice to speak, soft and opaque. Will looks foreword to sitting by Hannibal's desk and looking over his shoulder, pointing to a brightly lit screen past 6 in the evening, and distracting themselves with talk of Ulysses. He thinks about that until he falls asleep.

Molly's phone goes off in her pocket, and she giggles at the message, the screen a glint of light in her eyes. "By the way, Micheal is having dinner with us on Friday, so do you mind if you skip after-work drinks?"

"Why? It's not like he hasn't eaten here before?"

"That was before. Micheal's parents are coming too. They wanted to make it all official".

"His parents want to make what official?"

"Will, the boys wanted to make it official. Make a big hoopla, you know how Wally is".

Molly is struck with a genuine shock when Will continues to make no sign of understanding. She slows down her scrubbing and with a wet hand splashes dirty dishwater at him, "Oh my god. Worst Dad Award! Wally and Micheal are together, Will." She is laughing, and he wants to splash her back but doesn't. "I am very disappointed in you, Mr Graham", hers is a teasing sort of pissed off, made of sarcasm and childish games.

"I just thought they were close", he says because it's true. They do everything together besides shit in the same toilet and maybe even that. Will imagines weekends and weeknights, a superimposition of images upon images blurring, a hundred hands holding a hundred hands, under tabletops and through thrift stores, by front gates and midnight whispers that keep you up and school doesn't exist till morning. Then it starts to all make sense.

A mop slaps the tiles. Molly pushes the scraggly thing through Will's legs, trying to make him move.

"Wally was so embarrassed when I said it was obvious. I told him there were spare condoms in the bathroom, and I swear it was as if I said you like to suck my toes. The little shit probably already knew where they were. I can't believe you had no idea".

"I humbly accept this award. I'd like to thank no one because no one tells me anything". His is a timid kind of pissed off, made from don't cry's and worst-case scenarios. 

"Will".

"You don't think he treats me different?"

"Different how?"

"You know".

"Will, he is your son, and you are his father. He probably assumed you already knew".

"Yeah".

“I mean it was pretty obvious. You’d have to be blind and living in a completely different universe not to notice”.

“Okay okay I get it”. He laughs when she does. Then she wants to dance and takes his hands in hers. They are prunes and taste of soap. She twirls and captures him in a slow dance at a high school prom.

"Besides, we'll smoke and drink nice wine, while the boys have their own fun".

They have to cook mock chicken, that tastes more like lentil than it does good. Phylis and Jack appreciate the gesture, and Will enjoys the wine they gift, a cabernet that he drinks way too fast. Wally gives Micheal the last stuffed mushroom. Micheal cuts it in half and kisses Wally on the shoulder, then with such innocence Will doesn't recognise, he hides a bright smile in his glass of water. After dessert, they go up to Wally's bedroom, Molly giggles like a kid when she hears the sound of loud drums that thump down the stairs, blows bubbles with the dishwashing liquid.

On the floor of their living room, Jack tells them all about the first time he met his wife; A peace rally. She was a student, wielding a megaphone and screaming at injustice dressed in blue and Jack, with his still long hair offered her a joint and sung together by the Washington monument, songs that were changing the world. Phyllis said she liked his chest hair and wanted to, comb her fingers through it before she even spoke a word to him.

Will imagines sharing a cigarette between two hands, fingertips brushing and herbal kisses. It's a familiar feeling that's all his own.

"How did you two meet?" Phylis asks, her voice drowsy and deep. It's nice to listen to; Will prefers not to speak.

"Will was a shy one", Molly answers playing with the hole in his sock, barely a tickle. “I thought he was so cute. I had to have him right there and then".

Will inhales, deep and suffocating what's left of the little stub of weed and with vivid, microscopic detail, feels books pressed against his back, and the pull of his shirt, her kiss like wet, soft rubber. The generosity of her hands on his dick felt by only one other person, and they didn't know what they were doing. The first time she gave Will head, it was at her apartment because he still lived with his dad and he reconstructs the moment he saw her naked, he wanted to cry because the wetness on his hands drowned him with her desire overwhelmed with everything that she wanted. She didn't tell him that Wally was in the next room asleep, but he understood why when her hands shook, trying to soften his cries echoing in Will's chest. She told him she named him after Wally's father; it was a family name, but she didn't mention much else because of the tremor in her voice, in his voice. The first time he held Wally, he'd felt as small and as lost with a stranger looking into his eyes. He never told Molly that after that day, he'd stopped dreaming.

That evening in bed, they stay awake talking of things they've never got to do, and Will suggests taking a trip when they can. Molly wants somewhere warm, where the sun is so hot they have to be naked all the time. Will wakes at 4 am, sweating through his T-shirt. The sheets are wet, and he smells urine. Can't bear the look of Molly's pity when she realises. He soaks up as much as he can with a towel, sprays the room with something nice and waits for her to wake up first so he can strip the bed of his shame.

He doesn't mention booking a doctor's appointment the next day. He forgets to go.

On Sunday mornings, Molly gives him head, but it's hard to get hard when all he can smell is the tang of fetid piss as if it's soaked through under his skin and nails and hair, when not even knocking his head on concrete would make him forget it's there.

He calls Beverly in the evening when Molly goes out to buy dinner. They decide on pizza, and the only good place doesn't deliver.

"Why are you calling me?" She says yawning and amused; all tucked into bed. The lamp is on and blooms an ugly yellow.

"Sorry, I woke you up".

"I was dreaming about Keanu Reeves. It's sacred when I dream about Keanu Reeves. He doesn't show up often".

"Apologies. I'll let you get back to your wet dream".

"It's more uncommon for you to call, so apology accepted. How's Brian?"

"The same, unfortunately".

"How's the new guy taking to him?”

"Hannibal".

"What?"

"The new guy. He is called Hannibal".

"Is he a vampire?"

"European".

"Close enough".

"He is quiet".

"So you must like him".

"He's okay. Maybe a bit strange” and just talking about it makes him imagine it all over again, “I actually met him on your last night. He was at the bar. We talked about my favourite book; he bought me a new drink. I'd never tasted anything like it. Then when I was too drunk, he drove my car home. Like we were old friends or something".

"He sounds like you like him Will. I'm in a state of shock".

"I like you".

"Of course you would, that's a given".

"It was easy with you. But with him, he's distant at times. I'm not sure what he thinks me". He chooses not to tell her about his smoking habit.

"Maybe you should hand him a note and ask him: do you want to be my friend, check the box yes or no".

"I'm working back late this week. He's helping me catch up on a project".

"Sound exhilarating".

Will smiles and asks about Beverly's new life. She tells him about all the pictures of dead bodies she has already binged that they don't let you touch a real one till they can trust you with a scalpel. She tells him about all the people she's kissed and all the places she's danced and all the delicious food she's gorged. Will closes his eyes and imagines himself spinning, so fast he is flying, catching buttered popcorn in his mouth and a tongue right after. They say goodbye before Molly gets back.

Brian tells Will about everything he missed on Friday night. The shots-all-round from some rich dude surrounded by playboy looking bunnies who weren't actually playboy bunnies. The make-out session he had with a woman twice his age who said he liked the way he danced, like Fred Astaire. The Megalicious burger he finished under thirty minutes which meant he saved fifty bucks, blew chunks at 3 am, but it was worth it because he still got to get it on with Ms Ginger Rodgers in the back of her car. She smelled like clean cotton, like that first night in a hotel room. He offered to pay for one, but she refused because he made her feel young and reckless in a back seat. He said she looked like Taylor Swift as a mom.

Will asks Hannibal, "did you have as much fun?" Hannibal smiles, and he imagines it on someone young and reckless, dancing the waltz.

"I'm afraid I could not join Brian here on his adventures. I stayed home with a headache".

"I hope you are okay?"

"Much better Will, thank you".

He tells Hannibal of the mock chicken how it wasn't so bad considering the woodiness and warmth of the spices.

"You know, Molly and I should have you over for dinner".

"We shall see", Hannibal says as he turns from Will, away to some other place.

It's hard to get back to work when Will keeps a snapshot of that brief, dancing smile, a transparent film over everything. He'd like the real thing again just to make sure he remembers it right. The innate oddness. How it seems to promise so much but say so little. Hannibal might think it rude to stare.

Since the computer crash, Brian starts picking up on Will's mistakes. They are small and irritatingly inane, but if Brian can pick them out, that means there's too many of them, these accidents, typos, slipping of fingers. A nagging at his attention; hooked and pulling; pulling away from the force of the stream. Will finds he can't trust his keyboard, blaming some glitch, a mechanical interruption. He spends his lunch hour cleaning bits of crumb between keys and old coffee stains on his desk and then making sure each and every pen in his clay mug Molly made him for Christmas is working correctly. It's a glazed frog with one eye bigger than the other. And sometimes when Biran is especially obnoxious, Will talks to its malformed face. Finds that it helps to have an ear that listens and never speaks back.

Brian says it's no problem, that he'll just fix Will's mistakes all on his own like he is some sort of hero, hiding behind a suit tie and glasses but what he is really hiding is a slimy, self-satisfaction: 'I bested the best', marking red crosses and a do better next time on tardy homework. It is an easy grudge to hold. So in the privacy of his mind, Will lets this play unfold. Brian the Ungrateful and Will the Righteous and each time the curtain closes Will stands sentinel, smoking gun in his hand.

Will's focus is torn. There is a silence only he is used to in the office after hours. He is always the last to turn the lights off. The tapping of the keyboard is rapid like a hail storm, and Will can't help but watch with fascination, Hannibal and his blankness dissecting numbers, reading them under his breath, wetting his lips.

"It's very impressive Will", Hannibal finally says, and Will quickly looks away, at the screen. They managed to get most of what he lost back in a few days.

"Thank you". He notices one small error at the bottom of the page, leans over and clicks on the seven instead of the eight.

"Mr Sutcliffe was talking of you constantly when I first arrived. I expected the world and you have not disappointed yet". That makes him smile. As he puts on his blazer, ill-fitting and dusty, he is glad he can impress Hannibal in something.

"Mr Sutcliffe likes me so much because I make him a lot of money".

"Then he is a sycophant", Hannibal looks at him with those hooded eyes, like when he speaks smoke, the words of Joyce, a language Will understands.

"Don't forget a stick in the mud. Has he asked you about the PGA yet?"

"Yes", Hannibal says, an exhausted laugh that Will has laughed a hundred times behind his boss' back. "The man is practically in love. Why he spends so much time in an office, I don't know. I find myself picturing him on his knees, worshipping the 18th hole".

"Too busy bedding profits", Will says quietly, unsure of the innuendo. Until Hannibal laughs, and it feels like Will just got away with something.

"A greedy man indeed. I'd like to know what keeps you here, Will? A similar adoration of wealth?"

"No. I don't have much in the way of wealth. But I'm good at it, it seems".

"So pride then?"

"I wouldn't say I was proud of the work".

"A practical application of your skills. I wonder what other applications you are capable of", Hannibal says staring at Will until he has to turn away, wondering about Hannibal's wonder, why it feels like an unmoving force, like a ray beaming into Will something the human eye can't see.

"Other applications?"

"Passions".

"Analysis and passion are diametrically opposed".

"What horrid person told you that?"

"A college professor", Will had forgotten his name but always remembered how those words stuck to his back. An idiot by any other name is still an idiot.

"But you could speak for hours of James Joyce". Hannibal says, smiling as if catching Will in a trap and watching him try to wriggle out of it.

"But unlike Mr Sutcliffe, I don't unload".

"Maybe you should".

"...You wouldn't mind?"

"No, Will. I wouldn't mind".

It's strange how much he feels like a child; a show and tell theatre, and he has stage fright. But Hannibal doesn't mind, so from inside his briefcase, he tentatively takes out his copy of Ulysses and reads aloud all his favourite sections, marked out in faded pencil. At the end of a winding, unrelenting sentence, almost breathless he stops and then Hannibal tells him to read more. Read on. Yes I like that one too; the rhythm of it captures the music; the streets; and he does it to— yes that’s right— it is anarchic — I’ve not read that one yet but I loved his— the leap into nonsense— yes.

After Hannibal asks, "why do you like this book so much, Will?"

"Because it feels like an entire life can be lived in a day". It's an easy question to answer when Hannibal is there listening, looking at him with a simple quiet that Will finds comforting; A ceramic frog.

"And how many days have you lived, Will?"

In the empty car park, Will watches Hannibal walk away towards his bus stop. He wanted to ask if he'd like a lift, but his mind was stuck on a tally of days lived. He thinks he could count them up on his two hands and no more.

He wonders what kind of home he would pull up to; Hannibal's place by the river. He imagines dark walls and cracks in the paint, overgrown ivy up brown brick and ancient objects on books shelves. A piano, black and heavy by a window. Wonders if he has always lived alone.

A new character joins the theatre in Will's head: Hannibal the Great. He enters stage right in the second act, just after Will performs a soliloquy on the merits of responsibility and the tragedy of Brian's unwashed dishes he leaves behind in the sink everyday. Hannibal appears in all his finery from a snowstorm, and Will greets him with warm milk and honey as if a great friend back from many a year abroad. A friend who knows him, as well as Will, knows himself. Will sits at the lunch table surrounded by a months worth of Brian's empty coffee mugs, stacked up and teetering towards a crashing fall; coffee Will had the decency to make on Brian's behalf because he was too lazy to do it himself. When Hannibal approaches to sit by him, dusting snow off his shoulders, the audience is transfixed.

HANNIBAL

Do you mind?

WILL

Please sit old friend

HANNIBAL

I thought you would not recognise me

WILL

I remember you

HANNIBAL

I don't want to talk about Brian

WILL

I am afraid I'm lost for subject matter. He is the antagonist of this drama

HANNIBAL

(Silence)

WILL

He is thankless. And rude. And drinks his coffee with three spoons of sugar. It's vulgar

HANNIBAL

(Silence)

WILL

Don't just sit there. Say something

HANNIBAL

The green of your sweater brings out the colour of your eyes

WILL (laughing)

You sound like Molly

HANNIBAL

Have you told Molly?

WILL

She'd just laugh and tell me I'm overreacting

HANNIBAL

And what is your definition of an overreaction, Will?

WILL

Those kids that shoot up schools

HANNIBAL

A very apt example Will. Well done

WILL

Don't patronise me, please

HANNIBAL

Ah yes, that offends you. I apologise. It has been many a year

WILL

It is the epitome of offence. But I shall forgive you

HANNIBAL

How should I speak to you, Will?

WILL

Like you always have

HANNIBAL

As a friend?

WILL

My greatest friend

HANNIBAL

A friend should always be honest

WILL

That's right! I want you to be honest with me, and I will meet you with that same grace

HANNIBAL

But where have all your other friends gone, Will?

WILL (looking into the distance with a shining, single tear)

They flew away for the winter, to find people are the warmth of summer. I wait for them by that door, but the snow doesn't stop. I can't even have a conversation with Walter. He likes baseball

HANNIBAL

I find waiting tastes of soured milk

WILL (sobbing)

His father loved it. They would have played it in backyards when he was a boy yet. They would be the best of friends, and they'd speak of the poetry of innings and home runs. They would go to games and eat hotdogs. God! I should have taken Wally to games and ate hotdogs. Is it too late to ask now? Oh, bitter regret, how you send me into snivelling desperation. Would I stink of it? Would he turn his head away in apathy?

HANNIBAL

What of Molly. A partner is the most faithful friend—the one who walks with you

WILL

It's difficult with Molly. She is a babe in the woods. I don't want to burden her

HANNIBAL

Is it that overwhelming, that what you feel is so heavy a weight it would crush?

WILL (confused)

Wait. What are we talking about?

HANNIBAL

We are talking of the upstart that is Brian Zeller.

WILL

Of course, the little shit didn't even finish the mashed potatoes when he came over for dinner. Can you believe that kind of insolence?

Cue laugh track

END SCENE

Will drives them to the Bar on Friday night. Brian is the conversation. He is having a French fry debate with himself, yelling about McDonald's and how one time he got caught shovelling nuggets in his pockets when he was a burger flipper but didn't get fired because his manager was his girlfriend's brother at the time and Brian used to sneak him porno mags because Brian had an older brother who left a bunch under his bed when he died. They were full of guy on guy stuff, and his then girlfriend's brother is now married to the guy that owns the company that makes those serrated edges they use on plastic wrap boxes and tape holders, all the while Will fiddles with his shirt button.

Bile is the taste of bathrooms and sweat on the neck. Will squeezes out all the half-digested things he wanted to say all night, and it's painful the way the body can't hold on to the high, has to pull you to your knees like a sad deflated balloon. Hannibal is with him holding him up, making him walk on, a whisper in his ear to take him home.

Will dreams. Something long and wet moving down his throat. It tastes like dark whiskey and dark eyes, and all at once his throat constricts pushing it all back out again, like a waterfall but it's boiling down his front.

Will sobers up sitting in the passenger's seat. The stillness is immaculate as if Hannibal is made of it, affects the air around him with it and they exist in a place called the dead of night. Hannibal wears a look of concern, and it's heartbreaking, so Will tries to smile.

“I feel I owe you".

"Unnecessary. Do you feel any better Will?" Hannibal asks.

"I feel...like I made a terrible mistake."

"Too much?"

"Too much. I can't even remember".

"You succeeded in purloining Brian's rum and cokes. Then you kept them for yourself. Brian sung karaoke, poorly but it seemed to charm this friendly group of women wearing feathered crowns. Then they bought us all drinks. I choose not to partake; you were quite thirsty".

"I'm sorry if I was inconsiderate".

"I have no qualms Will. You needed a friend".

"Thank you, Hannibal".

His hand is on the seatbelt button, but he doesn't want to leave yet, as if unlocking the door would break something precious and sweet and safe. It's too cold outside, and he can feel it on the back of his neck.

"My legs still feel a bit weak", he says, breath catching up.

"Then you must wait", Hannibal smiles. Will spots it in his dim silhouette, a street light flickering from behind. It's comforting, knowing he can stay here, hidden between midnight and sunrise.

"Will?"

"Yes?"

"I would like to tell you something".

"Alright", it feels like pillow fort talk, when everyone is asleep except you and your best friend on a bedroom floor, and his voice is so loud because the night takes with it all light and sound. Just his voice remains. He doesn't want to go to sleep.

"I had a dream the other night", Hannibal says with nothing but a turned cheek and a long peer beyond the windscreen." You were there, Will".

He was there—what a curious insight. Will was there, haunting Hannibal's dreams and existing in his mind and here he is, unremarkable and corporeal.

"What was I doing?" because he desperately wants to know what his other lives get up to, what other adventures these spectres lead.

"You were in a lake. I swam up to you, but you were sleeping. I tried to wake you." Hannibal speaks in whispers, unsure of what he is saying and Will leans forward in confusion.

"How funny", Will says but doesn't laugh.

"What is?"

"That sounds familiar".

"Familiar?"

"Like, deja vu or something".

"Hmm", Hannibal's fingers tap his knees, and Will thinks he recognises a song.

"I read somewhere that dreams don't mean anything; just the messed-up-word-vomit-thing of an overactive mind. I used to have these dreams about my teeth falling apart in my mouth; dissolving like an antacid and I thought it meant I was scared of loss of getting older or something, but my dentist told me I was just grinding in my sleep", Will says, out of breath. 

"When faced with the inexplicable, most people find comfort in meaning".

It's silent again, and Will doesn't know what to say back, so it stays that way for too long. It's paralysing. It's a wriggling fish, and he doesn't know if he is killing it by not letting it go. Will's keys are still hanging from the ignition, and he points at the plastic Mickey Mouse head he got from a cereal box, it's ear missing and just to say something he says," he can't hear too well", too sad to be a joke.

Hannibal checks his phone, and Will notices that whatever secret hideout they made from quiet glances and midnight is gone. With a look of pity, Hannibal says he should go home and hands Will his keys. Will is a misshapen plastic trinket, a broken Mickey Mouse smile.

That night, sleeping next to his wife Will dreams that he can't hear anything because of a tongue in his ear, Hannibal mouthing at it. An eel worming it's way inside his mind. He won't remember it when he wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello,  
> I hope that if you come across this story that I can keep you reading. It will most likely be a long one I hope. 
> 
> I like to practice keeping things vague but I should say to clarify, Brian is around 23 years of age (I hope the bit about him still living at his parents alluded to that). I love him but for some reason Will is not a fan. 
> 
> I appreciate those who have given me a kudos (it’s ridiculous how much power they hold over my emotional well-being) and those who have given their time. Thank you. 
> 
> Till next week.


	3. mashed potatoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will just wants to be friends.
> 
> I’ll say here, there are allusions to general anxiety and panic attacks.

Will had his tonsils removed just as his new school term was starting. He got to miss a whole week and ate mashed potatoes and ice cream. On his first day back to class, everyone had a place to sit at lunch that didn't include him. The pain in his jaw and his head and his neck followed him to senior year, and on the 52nd page of his graduation yearbook is the only photograph of Will Graham, receiving an award. He doesn't remember what for. Mathematics maybe--

“Do you have dreams?” He asks, laying naked in the full morning sun. Molly rinses out her mouth looking for a clean pair of underwear.

"Sometimes. Last night I dreamt that I was in this action movie, and every time I spoke, out came the voice of Kermit the frog. So I was all like — _I'm gonna kick your punk ass_ , but it came out all cute and unthreatening".

"Did you look, unthreatening?"

"Let me tell you; I was ripped. Like my steroids took steroids ripped". Will laughs because he can imagine it. Molly with the body of a young Schwarzenegger, moving like Bruce Lee and plucking out rainbow connection on a worn banjo. "I never remember my dreams", he says, "I wonder what they look like".

Molly lays back down, brushing the hair out of her eyes and starts to talk to the sun rays on the ceiling, "I remember this tv show my dad used to watch. The bad guys had this way of projecting dreams into pictures so they could watch them like movies. I had a journal and wrote mine out like little scripts— made my friends act them out".

Will sees little Molly with her nine-year-old orange bowl cut, blowing out orders through a giant cardboard megaphone, hands covered in glitter glue.

"I didn't know that", he says.

"I guess it never came up".

Will was tired, an overwhelming sense of unachievable sleep caused by body shakes in the night. When he wakes in the morning, hours and hours before needing to go to work, he smells himself. Showers are hot, so hot his shoulders feel numb to the morning sun, a light blurred out by a sheer curtain. His work shirt hangs on the hook on the door, and as he does each button, he sees one missing, along with the ashen smudge. Will imagines the roll of a button travelling under beds and through cracks in the wall until it circumventes the entire globe.

Will arrives at work, early as usual. Except he doesn't turn on the lights or turn about in chairs, willing the day to start. Instead, he waits in the driver's seat, watches the light change to a plum red. It creeps in from the front gates. The first car to arrive belongs to Carol in Human Resources. She drives a hatchback, and there's a basketball sitting in the back window. She's on the phone talking loud and fast like she always does. Will slips further down the seat so she won't see him.

He waits, watches the light change to an all-consuming brightness. The sun sees him through his dirty windshield, trying to make out the shape of a man walking towards the gate, all enigmatic and unyielding. Will imagines walking over and greeting him with a good morning. The genuine kind. Imagines Hannibal saying his name, joining him in the lift up to their floor, and he'd ask Hannibal what his favourite book is, what makes it the very best out of all others. He watches Hannibal walk past alone. Now he just waits for the courage to face the day.

There is always a sinking dullness in the office, a gloom of bright lights because they don't have windows. The coffee machine is broken, and Brian can't stop talking about it. Will watches from his desk the stillness of Hannibal. He is austere. A focus sharpened on stone and cold water. And at a quarter to one, Hannibal collects his pack from inside his jacket pocket and walks out to the balcony by the fire stairs as if he'd forgotten Will existed altogether. It is impossible for Will to not feel the cut of that slicing, through something tender and wet. From that cut seeps the smell of unsatisfied sleep and the bitter note of sweat when you lick it from the upper lip.

To be just another office prop, a fern sitting in the corner, the fax machine they stopped using ten years ago, a fallen paperclip. Will realises what that smell is. It's in a toilet cubical he figures it out. When his ear is pressed to the door listening to Hannibal wash his hands and whistle a tune Will wants to know, worried the stink would betray his hiding spot, a fog creeping under the gap in the door. He knows then, right then, that he must smell desperate.

If it was a simple coincidence, Will is sure that Hannibal avoids him again the next day. In bed, as Molly sleeps, Will turns into himself, into his thoughts and dissects the entire day. Brian was unusually focused, mostly cross-checking older data sets. Will brought him coffee because he didn't even take a lunch break. Hannibal was in and out of his chair, photocopying documents and stopping to chat with Marissa, Mr Sutcliffe's receptionist. She just came back from having twins and looked like a grieving mother missing every second of being with them. She must have showed every single picture on her phone to anyone who would pity her; documented the entire birth, placenta and all. Will imagines her husband, with bloody hands and bloody phone and one of those dopamine smiles. Those ones that are compulsive and make you want to cry. At least that's what Molly's brother said when he became a father.

In the afternoon, Will had a short meeting with Mr Sutcliffe about timeline projections. He seemed distracted by his phone, frowning at something in particular and stopped mid-sentence to take a call. Will left and ran into Hannibal on his way to the copier. "Sorry," he said, and Hannibal smiled a too small smile. "You'd think one crying baby would be enough to get away". Hannibal stopped to reply, "pardon me?"

"Marissa", Will said, "I'd think twins would be too much to bear with all the crying". Hannibal looked at him as if he would look at his computer screen, unfeeling and ruthless. "If you ask me, Will", Hannibal said, "I think it a crime that this country does not allow a mother time with her newborn children", and then he walked away.

That must have been the reason. Will decides he'll apologise first thing in the morning.

Rising sun car parks where bats fly over a blue sky and Hannibal is a shadow against blinding sunrise. Will waits, forever waiting for him, all enigmatic and unyielding to walk into the shade. With the courage made from no sleep and three coffees, Will opens the door and walks to him, his practised apology waiting to burst forth from his lips. He practised all morning in the shower, trying to get that desperate smell out.

At the ticket gate, they will find their way back to normalcy. Will imagines ending the exchange with a joke, any lame, stupid joke that avoids any allusion to maternity leave, and Hannibal will laugh; think it's quite actually brilliant coming from Will. Instead, Hannibal says," Good morning Will" at the ticket gate and swiftly walks right past him, heading to the elevator, perfectly fine to be alone. The doors close before he can say it back.

Will presses a hand to his chest, holed up under the fire stairs. He closes his eyes, smells smoke, trips over burning buildings.

Brian makes a joke about some tax evading politician caught with a bag of cocaine in the back seat of his car, buckled up in a baby seat, and as if the world has turned on its head, Hannibal laughs, pats Brian on the back for it, like a thank you. Thank you for making the world brighter. Even Marissa laughs, and Brian had always looked down at her cleavage; Would say pregnant boobs were the best boobs. Will should tell Marissa that, all the heinous shit Brian does to boobs, see if she'll like him then.

"Brian, can I have a word," Will says, pointing towards an empty meeting room.

"Sure".

With the door shut, Will says, "look, I know it's fun joking around, but it's inappropriate when we have deadlines coming up".

"Are you serious?" Will would feel bad, expect Brian is smiling.

"Yes, Brian. I am".

"Come on, Graham; it's not that bad".

"Cut the bullshit and do some work for once".

"What stick is up your ass, man? I do just as much work as you".

"Oh yeah? Well, who is the one staying back doing overtime so that we can stay on schedule".

"You were the one that didn't back up his shit. Meanwhile, I use my time efficiently. I'm not gonna stay back when I have a life to live".

"Some life that is"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Who always makes sure your drunk ass gets home all safe and sound every single week. That's right; me. I should be paid for babysitting".

"Did I ask you? I do what I want, Graham. Unlike you, the fucking grim reaper telling me I can't make one fucking lousy joke because I might fuck up a timeline? Do you realise how irrational that is?"

"I care about this job".

"So do I, but I can't fuck it. I do my time, take my money and go".

"There is pressure on me to care more than you, Brain".

"I'm not gonna listen to this. When you have a legitimate problem, I'll listen".

"You never listen! You just talk out your ass constantly".

"Fuck you, Graham".

Things between Will and Brian are an unresolved thing, sitting in the corner of the office with a leer, but both refuse to acknowledge it. It has been decided through inaction and silence that their argument never happened and that their voices never travelled past the closed door of that empty meeting room where everyone on their floor could hear. Even when Marissa asks Will if everything is okay, he just smiles and says, "of course, Marissa. Everything is hunky-dory".

Hannibal doesn't say a word. He is Hannibal the Mute, standing centre stage as Will appears from the wings. The set is aglow with orange light, a sunrise as snow falls, filling up waste paper baskets until footprints appear.

WILL

You must be cold.

HANNIBAL

(Silence)

WILL

I found you a coat. It's woollen. I mended the hole by the elbow. It has a patch that doesn't match. I thought you wouldn't mind, but maybe you do.

HANNIBAL

(Silence)

WILL

My friend. Please understand it was all the fabric I could find.

Hannibal walks over to a hat stand. There he puts on his own coat with a fur collar. Then he looks at Will, confused.

HANNIBAL

Will. I didn't see you there; when did you get in?

WILL

Just now. Didn't you hear me?

HANNIBAL

Everyone heard you, Will. Marissa had her ear pressed up against the door

WILL

I had to yell. he wouldn't listen to what I was really saying

HANNIBAL

What were you really saying?

WILL

That- that- that-

HANNIBAL

Are you stuck?

WILL

That-

HANNIBAL

You seem to be stuck on that word. Maybe try a different one.

WILL

That-that

HANNIBAL

There are plenty to choose from. Tens of thousands, I'd say. More.

WILL

That-

HANNIBAL

And that's just English. Think of all the languages you don't know. I know them. It's truly inspiring what one can come up with when you collect them all. 

WILL

That—

HANNIBAL

You should know Will; you've read sentences that span thousands of words without stopping. You've recited them. You have a voice—a nice one, in fact.

WILL

(Silence)

  
  


HANNIBAL

Maybe try scapegoat? It is most appropriate. I think Will, it's a great crime that a friend could be treated so poorly in this country.

WILL

Just a friend?

HANNIBAL

It was very unpleasant business hearing two friends be so cruel to one another. You should apologise

WILL

Me? He told me to fuck off

HANNIBAL

What if I told you the same?

WILL

I don't know what I'd do with myself for you are my great friend.

HANNIBAL

Just a great friend?

WILL

That's what I want, yes! Do I have to beg on my knees? Is that a wretched thing to do? Am I too much?

HANNIBAL

I think Will, you should fuck off

CUE LAUGH TRACK

That night Will dreams of a planet, empty and hollow. His is the only footsteps—follow them he thinks— over and over till his feet fit inside past prints he has been here before but now with broken shoes that break. There is a lake when his feet are bare- wet. Here there is only horizon. He stands and looks out, waiting for something to appear. Willing something. He won't remember it in when he wakes up.

Beverly calls Will at the most inopportune time. Sitting in the front seat and looking at morning, hoping to bump into Hannibal on his way to the lift. He closes his eyes as he picks up the phone; he doesn't want to watch another opportunity to slip away.

"Hey, Willy".

“I'm hanging up", he says, but it's always a joke with them.

"I heard from a little postnatal birdie that you are breaking camel's backs".

"Well, you can tell Marissa she shouldn't be eavesdropping on private conversations".

"I don't think it counts as eavesdropping. I'm super jealous I didn't get to hear your little soapbox diatribe".

"It wasn't that bad. More an air of grievances, and I don't know... I couldn't stop once I started".

"Are you okay, though?"

"Yeah, I'm fine".

"It's just like I know you don't like him, but I've never seen you explode like that".

"I'm allowed to lose my patience once in a while".

"What I mean is... is there something else going on. Like, is everything at home, okay?"

"Molly is great. Wally has a boyfriend".

"That's huge".

"Yes, But he is the same pretty much".

"And what about the new guy? Make friends yet?"

Will opens his eyes and strangely sees Hannibal walk in from a storming horizon. At first, he appears like a hallucination, as Hannibal always seems to do, like he just appears out of nowhere appears only when Will wants him to. He hates that Hannibal doesn't look at him when he passes by; it is the most lonely feeling when the potential for friendship is cut short by the cut of avert eyes.

"Yeah, he is coming to dinner this Friday", Will lies. But more than a lie, it is a hope, a desire to see the future bend to his will.

"Well, at least your not totally alone then. I was worried about you".

"I know. I appreciate it".

"If you need to talk about anything. I'm just a phone call away".

The call ends, and Will's whole body grows still from a weight pulling down his back and shoulders. The effort to pick up his hand makes his fingers tremble. He won't leave the car until he stops hyperventilating.

Hannibal finds his packet of wildfire cigarettes at a quarter to one, and Will doesn't wait for a signal. He gets up prematurely and follows Hannibal to the balcony by the fire stairs. Each step, the sound of dry cello stings, discordant and arhythmic, rumbling faster and maybe it's not the sound of his steps but the music of his heart. Outside is too bright; warm sun and making his brow sweat that miserable smell, he hopes Hannibal can't smell it. The distaste of clingy, a tacky type of need caked on, congealing and coagulating. It sticks to him like a goo, gloppy and unsavoury. He should have put on less cologne.

Hannibal is leaning over the rail, the cigarette already lit. Will imagines the ash falling down four stories towards another death.

He doesn't know what to say, so just stands there, in a paralysing embarrassment, watching Hannibal's back curve away from him. If this is some sort of served justice, Will thinks it cruel and unusual. This horrible silence a concoction of burning tongues and burning suns, it's too hot to stand, here doing nothing but stand the back of him and silence with him was once a lovely thing, a butterfly held between gentle hands, a brittle silence of night owls and open eyes that look to each other and talk of anything because no one else is around —an anytime conversation that turns to whisper because you're so close you don't need to yell down phone receivers and through locked doors and upstairs and across others countries. This silence is a betrayal because Will does want to yell at Hannibal's turned back, yell back— be yelled at by a backup back against a wall, but it's like talking at a wall, to talk of nothing is this bleak and unrelenting quiet. The noise inside, the music of his heart is screeching of strings, tearing apart the bow, horsehair loose and breaking down till there is nothing left to play but to beat the body of rotten cellos with wooden handles and fists.

"Hello Will", Hannibal says, still looking away, still leaning against the rail, still smoking. Will is stunned by his voice for a moment, thinks it might be his imagination trying to paint a better outcome over this picture of estrangement.

"I apologise", Will says because it's the only thing he can think of, to build a bridge with his hands if he could, and he even bears out his hands as if covered in the calluses and cuts of his labour. But Hannibal doesn't look. Will's music drops, falls to the floor, a drumbeat of fallen parts.

"I apologise", he says again, stuck on the word as all others evade him.

"What for?" Hannibal says.

"For my outburst".

"There is no need to apologise to me, Will. I found it rather compelling", and then he turns around with a sharp smile. It's not his everything smile, it's just a fraction of something else, whimsical and vague, and maybe there is more music, a thump in an empty room surrounding Will with its vibrations, a warm feeling humming under his feet.

"Compelling?" Will parrots, an echo of a delay, this room is large, and the music keeps moving, bouncing off solid walls.

Hannibal takes the cigarette to his mouth; it's almost a stub of nothing left, like a sand dial; time is almost up. "Your anger," Hannibal says, "To listen to it from inside a locked room was much like receiving a wrapped gift. I am curious to see what's inside". Then Hannibal leaves, giving Will the last of his cigarette.

He inhales smoke, embers and sparks of heat. What symphonies the music of his heart could make.

Will waits in the car park after work, lightning strikes and the dashboard rattles. The rain makes the beyond murky, the world outside full of real things Will refuses to believe in. He pulls up to the precipice, foot on the break. Then he leans over to open the passenger door. Hannibal is standing there waiting, the tips of his shoes at the hard edge of downpour, just before the sky opens up, and Will can see from empty hands that Hannibal has no umbrella.

"I'll drive you", Will says, stammering out a wish, and as if it came true, Hannibal sits beside him as if he was always there.

Will follows Hannibal's directions; it's the only thing that is said even though Will wants to say every possible word to start back up their moonlit talks. Wants to bare witness to Hannibal's curiosity.

Hannibal stops him at a dead-end; beyond is a fence nearly torn down from overgrown ivy. The rain has just stopped.

"I have a view of the river", Hannibal says, pointing at the beyond. He thanks Will for the ride and is already leaving.

"Come to dinner this Friday", Will leans forward, not ready to release the fish back into the stream.

"With your family?" Hannibal says, resting back in his seat.

"With Molly and I. Wally isn't around in the evening".

"Would it be rude to bring a plate of something? To show my gratitude".

"Of course not. Molly will probably make her mashed potatoes, so— They aren't the greatest".

"You keep making the invitation more and more alluring" Hannibal smiles, and so Will does too; it's infectious this feeling, a comfort in the afternoon grey. Something about being in this car and all the other late nights threaded into the fabric of its memory.

"You can come at around six if you want". Will says

"I would like that, Will. Our little friend Brian will be alone again without his baby sitter".

"Was I too harsh? And don't be polite".

Will fixates on the glow from the window, dull and white and how it traces Hannibal's ear and the side of his face before the shadows capture the rest save the white of his eyes, burning with light.

Hannibal leans foreword, "you were boiling with something", and speaks not just with his voice but with his shoulders and eyes and the angle of his neck. A curiosity embodied in a living creature, and Will likes that attention; an audience rapt in stillness, waiting in anticipation for the next direction. Will leans foreword then, a mirror of that same interest. Hannibal then says like a conspirator, secrets spoken in their bunker, "It may just burst", then falls away to the fogged-up window, drops of rain tracking through and a gallop gallops in Will, a pull toward. "Like cabbage rotting in a jar. Let it sit too long, and there will be cuts on your hands".

Will hears the click of the belt buckle after Hannibal leaves with a gentle nod and a "see you tomorrow, Will" and "thank you for the invitation. I'd be glad to dine with you".

Hannibal arrives at a quarter to six. From the top step just before the landing, Will listens to his — good evening Molly Graham. He brought wine and, as promised, a dish of sprouts made with walnuts and grapes. Molly offers him a place on the sofa and lets him know Will is upstairs and will be down soon. Everything smells of caramel and melted garlic as Will slowly makes his way downstairs, the creak of them ruining the silence as if he could approach Hannibal unannounced, a shadow sliding across walls.

Hannibal is by the fireplace, petting Winston behind the ears. "He's a rescue", Will says as Hannibal turns and looks to Will with pleasant regard.

"He has excellent manners", Hannibal says and smiles, and Winston, with a tired and wooden sound, trods back to his bed. Those weary eyes were once of panic when Will saw it had no collar; too busy falling in love to think of its other owner and its other name. 

Molly does make her mashed potatoes. Will eyes them when they sit at the table with suspicion. You'll never know how they'll turn out until you put them in your mouth and decide to eat or discretely pop them in a napkin. There is roasted chicken and salad made with lots of oil and lots of secret family spices, and the most delicious thing Will tastes is the tangy sweetness of the grapes, singed and dotted with heat.

"I'm amazed, Hannibal", Molly says, already on her second glass of Hannibal's wine. It's dry, a crispness of apple somewhere on the side of the tongue. "You are the far superior cook".

"I have always cooked for myself," he says, taking a large helping of the potatoes, and Will almost feels sick. "I find cooking to be much like breathing. I breathe every day, I can't help it".

"I feel that when I draw. It's compulsive, so I knew I had to do it forever. I only hope my work tastes as good as your food".

"I create for myself", Hannibal says, chest full of his breath and his voice measured and true, "to create for oneself and to enjoy what we create is I believe to be one of life's greatest pleasures".

"And to create a life that is a whole other trip. I remember when Wally was born and I felt like that was it; I couldn't be any more fulfilled. I was consumed by him and his tiny hands, and even when he cried, I was just smitten. Then— you know, the next day, they are falling in love and wanting to run away from you and grow up and be everything all at once", Molly says and always speaks with all her brightness and biggest smiles always about Wally.

"To create is also to let go, to experience loss", Hannibal says. "In a way, I do too when I have nothing left on my plate. But then there is always breakfast then lunch then all over again", he says, laughing with Molly when she says, "are you saying I should just create another life. No thanks—one's enough".

Will is distracted; he can't stop but anticipate the moment Hannibal takes a bite of that room temperature mush and when it hardens out over dessert and coffee. He holds his breath.

"I must mean, God, must always be devastated", Hannibal says and looks at Will when he says it, considers the taste of the mash, swallows and goes back for seconds. Will gets oil of his favourite shirt.

Hannibal helps dry the dishes after Molly tells him five times it's unnecessary. "I must insist. You have been wonderful hosts. It's the least I can offer". When Hannibal leaves to have a smoke outside, Molly smiles at Will and whispers, "I like him".

"Yeah?"

"Oh! One million times better than Brian," and that makes Will laugh. 

"I can't believe he finished your potatoes".

"Neither can I".

Forest fire is night is Hannibal, the pulse of light to mouth, breathes embers to light. He can barely see Hannibal through the smoke and foggy night. Will asks with his fingers, and Hannibal offers the cigarette with his eyes.

"Molly is quite lovely. I wouldn't have to hear her voice to know she is full of life", Hannibal says.

Will doesn't want to talk about Molly; he wants to talk about God and his devastation.

"She is. I couldn't imagine my life without her, really. I've known her longer than I haven't"

"Do you resent her?" Its a question that rattles a cough out of Will, like words are the things stuck down his throat.

"Do I resent my wife?"

"She followed her dreams, Will".

"How do you know this isn't my dream?"

"Because Will, dreams are made of stars and thermonuclear fusion. Dreams happen to you because they are so profound they burst".

"And am I not bursting?"

"You will", Hannibal says like he is God in command of stars. Will looks up to them, their minuscule brightness, their insignificance, their total inevitable self-annihilation, and thinks— yes, they may be some affinity.

As much as Will wanted, he was too drunk to drive Hannibal home. He watched the taxi until it turned at the end of the street— turning with it as the waves returned. 

Will has a dream that night. He is in a sea of love. Its waters reflect the sky like its mirror image. He is both floating in air and water. Touch the clouds like fish swimming past his fingers, kissing tips. And when water takes up all the space in his lungs, it just feels like breathing. He won't remember it when he wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A day late (a promise I made to myself) but that’s okay because I did end up rewriting this chapter. I really like Molly in the series so I’m doing right by her. She is cool and Beverly is still there trying her best. I honestly think this chapter is Will thinking Hannibal is the cool kid at school that he really wants to be friends with. 
> 
> Did I mention this was slow burn? because honestly, it’s glacial. 
> 
> Thank you again for reading and hope you stick around because Will has a lot inside him waiting to explode.  
> Till next week (or the week after)
> 
> P.s I listened to a bunch of songs when writing this chapter that helped me finish. I’d compare it to the show’s soundtrack, If anyone is interested: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kqgX1ZdixO4ecz-r-PMka0lMTnklVFeUo


	4. The Diary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal gives Will a promise. 
> 
> Warning for mutilation. And derogatory language. Very small mention of suicide.  
> Surprisingly some fluff. Don’t expect too much.

Will decides today that he doesn't need the rain to ask permission. On Monday, as Hannibal is putting away his things, Will approaches him. Hannibal looks at him like a friend, like this is what they have always done, and it warms Will to know he hasn't set himself adrift. He stands and clears his throat and, with a smile, asks, "do you need a lift home?"

Hannibal doesn't look shocked or irritated. He gives and gives a smile back, and that's all he says before he bows his head and turns to the exit. Will follows him.

Will remembers precisely the way to go to Hannibal's home by the river. Will reconstructs streets and no though roads in his memory, the chemist on the corner he sees even before they reach its neon pink and broken letters. It was raining the last time he followed Hannibal's directions, and the pictures that extend along the paths in his mind are puddled and misty. At the end of the street, where ivy grows, Will brakes and turns the key. The engine goes silent, and Will can't bear to leave it dead.

"I don't mind it", he says, "driving".

"I very much appreciate the gesture Will. You have been quite accomodating. I feel as if I should offer something in return". Hannibal's breathing is imperceptible, and Will marvels at his stillness, the untouched porcelain perfection of his hands resting on the leather suitcase on his lap. It looks as if a giant lizard had to die for it.

"You don't have to do anything in return, Hannibal. It's nothing. I'm in no rush. Molly isn't home tonight, so-"

"And if she were, would you refrain?"

The more Will thinks about it, the more he doesn't know why he brought it up. "No", he says. "I wouldn't. Do you usually take the bus home?" Will says, reeling for things to talk about that have nothing to do with work. He can't bear to tarnish conversation with Hannibal with talk of work.

"Usually. My car is still in Europe. Parts of it at least. It met a terrible end, unfortunately".

"Were you in an accident?"

"Not so much an accident as an unfortunate series of events. I find the bus service here to be regimented. I enjoy the view—the people. I amuse myself thinking who everyone is and what becomes of them when they alight at their stop," Hannibal smiles, closing his eyes.

Will isn't sure why until he speaks again. "A man with a questionable taste in shoes sits behind the driver- he tends to distract her with talk of conspiracy theories. He gets off before me at the stop on the corner of Brighton and Beech.

"A tall woman sits behind me whispering words she reads from a magazine, usually dating advice. She believes herself to be unwanted, very careful of her slight limp. It is because of this she keeps quiet— a show of invisibility.

"A mother and her school children sit in the back seat. They are well behaved, and she is a disciplinarian. I can tell by the way she doesn't look at her children when she speaks to them, and they are of an age in which they will soon resent her for it. Their stop is by the library, where there are all those large houses with ghostly faces. Their father is absent; otherwise, he would escort them. Instead, he demeans her by making her take public transportation. She would rather not appear common. She goes to the salon often. I can smell the hairspray".

Hannibal opens his eyes as clouds part in the sky. Hannibal should say more- Will wouldn't mind listening to it all, cataloguing a copy in his imagination. "Who else?" Will says, whispering on a short breath.

"A young man dressed in the same clothes most days. He is likely without a home. I often smell on him warm concrete and grass. He likes to stare out the window, so when he cries, no one can see him. I've never seen him leave. He must stay on as long as possible to have someplace out of the elements".

Will senses an engine, the rumble of it— the propulsion. Being in motion and watching trees pass by, things slipping by to a second before. This feeling is of the future, of things to come. It's an optimistic wonder, and when the glass rattles, it's only the composition to a possibility; a crescendo driving ahead and the heat at the bottom of his feet only proves it.

"He stays on to have somewhere to go. The possibility of somewhere else to go", Will says, feeling as though the words follow Hannibal's, a seamless fold in time, for there is no way to tell how long Will was lost in thought.

"This boy", Hannibal says, observing him, "Is he stuck?"

"He is. But I don't believe he will always be".

"Why is that?"

"Because he has so much hope. It pains him, but he keeps trying to look for a way out, even if it's only an illusion" Will wants to cry for the young man, the way he cries out bus windows.

Hannibal appears in thought, a slip of tongue.

"You are curious, Will", he says, fixated. Will wonders what he is thinking; it's impossible to know except when he smiles. Like shadow, a slippery thing emerging from a dark place, Hannibal leans foreword. Inspecting, like Will, is something fascinating. A dissection cutting through him, knives are eyes, and Will is bleeding out all that is in him; he wonders if it shows on his face too— this curiosity and the light keeps getting closer and brighter, and soon he'll have to shield his eyes. Hannibal, with a voice unreadable as smoke, curls itself around Will's cheek, "I would like to cut open your head, to have a look at what else is hidden there".

It's harder and harder for Will to breathe, a tumble of noise battering the space inside where his heart should be. It's strange how much of a ratchet it makes, but his arms and chest and head and legs and feet don't move. There is something in tall grass, something just next to his ear, a hiss or an exhale. He doesn't move, so he doesn't get hurt, lying in the reeds, but even then, if a snake wrapped itself around his neck, he'd wonder how long it would take to stop breathing.

"Tell me, Will..." Hannibal says, his voice following a path down his oesophagus, joining all the other strange drones of Will's music.

"Do you often see thoughts?"

"See thoughts?" Will says, confused, and it's a heat that spreads over his face. Hannibal must see it; he wouldn't be able to miss its colour, the rose tint changing to green. Will feels sick from it.

"Can you see my thoughts Will?"

He doesn't know how to answer the question. He thinks the only way to find out is to press himself as close as he can to the glass and what he sees is something missed the first time, hidden under a laugh, tame and gentle. For the first time, Will sees Hannibal show his teeth. It's a smile holding back a bite, and it's terrifying.

"Perhaps, you can tell me over dinner?" Hannibal says, falling back. Will turns to his hands; they are clasped tight to his knees, palms wet and shaking.

"Dinner?" he says, unsure.

"It would only be polite to return the favour, Will. Say this weekend?"

"At your home?" Will tries to make out the shape of Hannibal's house and can only see the very peak. It's sharp and points to the south. "Molly will still be away this weekend", he remembers.

"That's a shame", Hannibal says to the sky, not bothered at all by the coming rain clouds. Will braces himself for a goodbye, but instead, Hannibal says, "that she will have to miss out". Then he leaves, the wind blowing his hair, and it makes him look wild, a looming figure, battling storms and Will watches him walk away until he no longer can.

Will asks Wally to eat dinner together. It isn't a father's order to a son but a pathetic please-don't-leave-me-alone. Will's never been able to order him about anyway. 

The butter is left out on the bench with eight broken eggshells and two rotten ones in the bin. The bread is slightly burnt, a layer of soot scraped off and caking the sides of the sink. It smells like metal and caramelised onions. He forgets to add the peppers and tells Wally that he hopes it's still good.

"It's an omelette, dad", he says, "hard to go wrong with an omelette".

"There is plenty to go wrong with an omelette".

Wally talks about school, band practice and rumours about the haunted bathroom stall in E block. Cassie Struthers swears on her dog's life that she saw the ghost of a schoolgirl with bloodied eyes and a crooked walk, but no one really believes Cassie Struthers because everyone in school knows she lied about helping some kid from the Disney channel escape through the Kmart staff entrance during a Saturday night shift. Will wants to tell him to cover his mouth when he eats but doesn't.

Wally eats out loud, just like Molly, just like the rest of her family. Aunts with big appetites and cousins talking with full mouths, reaching for second helpings and a father, marinading his bread in every sauce and every juice at the bottom of every pot.

His fingers are butter covered, and he sucks them clean when his phone rings with a message. His smile is even bigger and brighter when he reads it; a happiness Will has only ever caught glimpses of. He thinks of Hannibal and the strangeness of his smiles. Wally texts back, knee-shaking and waiting for a reply.

"Everything good with Micheal?" he says when Wally puts his phone away. He knows it's Micheal. No one else can make Wally happy like that, not anymore.

"Yes Dad, everything is good".

"And you both are, you know..."

Wally is holding himself, retching from the embarrassment. He keeps mumbling, ‘oh my gods', under his breath. "Dad, we don't need to have this conversation, okay? Mom took care of that. Nothing bad is going to happen".

"I just mean-" then Wally cuts him off with a horrible sound like a wretch, "Please don't make me say it, Dad. I'm not some stupid kid. I know what I'm supposed to do, okay. Please drop it".

"I'm sorry", and he is. 

Will wants to drop it, but he stops Wally from running off upstairs too fast. It's strange, and he can tell Wally thinks so also because Will doesn't do this, a hand holding him back by the elbow. Something always holds Will back, but he needs to know, needs to make sure.

"Wally, I know you are a smart kid. I just hope you treat each other— I mean, you should make sure each of you is okay".

Will keeps holding on, won't let Wally get away, so he takes his shoulders, holds them and pleads.

Wally looks down all petulant, "God, we haven't even done that yet", he says in a whisper, "he is still my best friend. He isn't some asshole".

Will holds his cheek and stares into Wally's eyes,"just promise me you'll always ask? Make sure— be sure that you aren't making a mistake. It's important".

"Fine, yes, okay", he can feel Wally wanting to get away like this is all obvious and a waste of time, and it's heartbreaking. At that moment, Will feels like an imposter. He lets go and closes his eyes, refusing to see the look on Wally as he leaves, and when Will hears the creak of the top of the stair, Wally says, "I thought you hated the idea of Micheal and me".

"Of course I don't".

"Didn't seem that way at dinner. Like— you looked disappointed or something". 

Will can't see anything of himself when he looks at Wally; built of defiance, standing at the top of the staircase, a ruler of his own destiny, and Will wants to hate him; Resents the way this boy wonder says, I'm not a little kid anymore, and Will mourns discarded youth. Will was far too quiet a boy, would never dream of speaking his thoughts out loud to his father the way Wally can do with just a look. Wally has superseded him, and all Will can do is bow at his feet for mercy.

"I'm sorry if it came off that way. You know I love you. No matter what".

Wally smiles, and Will sighs in relief, "cool" Wally says. He is a boy again, playful and sweet. Will wants to capture it, that essence and swallow it whole.

Before sleep, Will calls Molly. She doesn't pick up after two missed calls. An hour later, Will receives a message.

 _sorry, my sweet man. I miss you. I'll call you tomorrow. Sweet dreams_.   


At three in the morning, Will wakes up in the back yard, shivering, grass wet and smelling of urine.

Will decides he doesn't need a smoke signal for permission. He walks to the balcony by the fire stairs before Hannibal reaches for his packet stored away in his breast pocket. Outside he waits for him to approach, leaning into the wind to keep him from getting too hot.

"You are shaking", Hannibal says as he hands over the lit cigarette. Will's fingers twitch at the touch. "You seem restless, Will".

"I didn't get much sleep last night", he says, coughing out smoke. His eyes strain; rubbing them with nicotine only makes it burn more.

"Bad dreams?" Hannibal says, taking in more smoke and fire, blows it back along the side of Will's face. It's almost like a caress, falling into it and the exhaustion. He closes his eyes and tries to remember anything before standing under the sky, a frozen creature looking for answers in darkened corners.

"I can't remember", he says and wants to beat his head in, find missing pieces, the physical proof made from sinew and synapses and grey matter. "I can never remember".

He jolts when Hannibal places a hand on his shoulder. He looks at Hannibal and sees a focus, a knowing beyond himself. He stutters and stops and wants to talk about the sleepwalking and the sweat and the piss stains, but thinks it might be easier to be cut open; let Hannibal be the surgeon; his hands are so firm. 

Hannibal takes a step closer, like tree branches entwining into a canopy, and no light reaches the forest between them. Hannibal, with his wood-turning-black voice, the smell right under his nose, "I want you to know to Will that you can tell me anything. I give you my word I won't tell a single soul". 

Then he rolls his sleeve up innocently enough but then, with a peculiar pause, holds it out for Will to see. It is bare. Will doesn't know what is happening until he has the cigarette in his hand, and Hannibal guides the burning end to the fold of his inner elbow. It's so soft. Will touches it with his thumb, pushes down into tendons and veins. Skin. Hannibal's skin, Will wonders what's underneath. If there is more of that wild he saw when wind blew— there must be if fire is slowly singeing a spot of unbearable heat, burning through skin— Hannibal's skin— his mouth; that skin smiles and Will smiles too until the fire goes out because he is twisting it into the fold of Hannibal's elbow— tobacco leaves falling on leather shoes.

Then the wind grows colder, and Hannibal moves back, pulls down his sleeve and buttons his cuff. He becomes something else then, an impression of a man in a suit. Too measured and too normal, it is unreal. It stops Will from apologising even when he thinks he should.

"What was that for?" He asks instead.

"An oath."

"An oath?"

"I can't get rid of it now. Will you show me the same grace?" Hannibal looks at him with a pleasant grin, everything about it all innocent enough, "As a friend?"

"...a friend?" He barely utters, and he thinks he can just feel a tingle on his arm, where he might wear a similar scar. "You'd be that kind of friend?"

"Yes", Hannibal says, certain.

He takes Will by the shoulder again as they walk through office halls, back to work and back to fluorescent lights where nothing ignites Will's mind as much as the skin he is in when he imagines himself making his own oath; a disembowelment. 

By the end of the day, he finishes nothing and realises he doesn't care when Mr Sutcliffe gives him a lecture like he is some kind of child. They have deadlines. Will works overtime, filling his mind with ways to dislodge Mr Sutcliffe's tongue.

  
Wally's bed isn't made. He left earlier for Michael's because Molly said it was okay. His sheets are pinstriped, hanging off the mattress. His t-shirts are inside out in a pile. Everything smells like pot and dusty shelves.

The walls are still painted a pale yellow under Nick Cave posters when there was still a cot in the corner, and the window let in the afternoon light. Wally's breakfast bowl sits on his nightstand of hardened and stale porridge, so Will picks it up to put in the sink.

He spots a hiding place in a nook by the corner of the bed—a notebook, covered in stickers and padded out with thick, waterlogged pages. There is no lock, no secret password, and Will is a breeze flipping open the pages.

Wally writes with speed, words that stretch out as if he were boiling over with thoughts, trying to catch them before they popped out of existence. The first page is a declaration, a pledge to become a writer, the best ever— To write down everything and every possibility. Will didn't know that about Wally.

In the middle, Will finds old baseball cards, lyrics to a song, and a photograph of Molly taken before Will met her, still pregnant, held in the arms of Wally's father. Sometimes Wally writes about missing someone he doesn't remember, wishes his mom would reveal all her secrets. Molly won't. Hers is a long weathered symptom of grief, stowing away the young man with bright eyes and a blue jumper. It was the last photo of him taken.

Near the end, Wally writes about boyish love.

To the future me,

Take note. Today was big. A dream. Magnificent. Incredible. Exquisite. I'm looking at a thesaurus because I need to remember how important! Significant! Unparalleled! Today was. Every detail so when you are too old to function you'll read this and relive this. I don't care what anyone thinks— I don't care how much people might think I'm sick! Mad! A freak! I'm sure I'm in love for the first time in my life. Please always be in love. It's the best. And I hope it's still with Mike. That would be awesome! My greatest achievement.

I slept over at his place last night and we stayed up waaaaaay past midnight. His parents sleep down the hall so we tried super hard to stay quiet. He was being so funny I almost pissed my pants. We were making a list of the worst songs of all time. We couldn't decide between who let the dogs out and the crazy frog when he did this spot-on impression of the crazy frog singing who let the dog out but like right in my ear so his breath was tickling me and making me get goosebumps and my stomach filled with air. I couldn't control myself— I was laughing into my pillow and it smelled like him.

Then we stopped laughing, but the feeling was still there like in my chest, and I wanted to look at him. It was dark but the window was open so I could see everything. His room is the coolest, filled with things like art and he teaches me about politics. I didn't give a shit but there is a whole fucked up world out there and he showed me that. And he plays me music all the time— songs I've never heard before and they all are amazing. Then when it got all quiet he whispered my name and I looked up and we were side by side and he was so close— closer than when we wrestle for the tv remote because this time he was looking at me the way I always wished he would. He looked down at my mouth. Then he smiled. His smile is the best. It is wide and his cheeks get all soft and I want to rub my nose against them.

Then I said "what was that?"— Like I couldn't hear him. And he got closer "is this better" and I couldn't stop being happy. Then I said "still can't hear you" and he got even more close— close enough to bite his chin if I wanted to. But I couldn't move! I swear I was paralysed but so so fucking happy. I wanted nothing to stop this. I didn't want to ruin it just in case he didn't like me back and we were just us like joking around. But then he moved his hand and I swear to God I thought I was going to die. He touched my hair. Not in a playful way but like he thought it was something to look at.

I'll never forget what I said because I felt like the biggest dumbest idiot of all time— "Don't tell me I have dandruff". I suck! But it made him laugh. It was so cute because it was small and quiet and he got even closer if that's possible. Then he said "you don't have dandruff idiot". Then I kissed him. I couldn't not kiss him. He was glued to me, and I've thought about it so much for a second I thought I was in a dream.

And then he kissed me back! I felt it when he pushed into me and held me and I did die then I think. I couldn't remember breathing at all. Kissing was weird at first to be honest. Like slimy. He licked my cheek and I laughed into his face. Then I accidentally head-butted him and I said sorry and kissed his forehead and he just hugged me harder.

When it was quiet again I heard him say to me— to my chest but it felt like he spoke directly to my heart "I like you so much Wally." fuck I wanted to cry! I can't believe he feels the same way as me. I've never felt more like we were the same person than at that moment. I smelled his hair because it was just below me and I finally could without being a weirdo and he smelled like him like my pillow. We just stayed that way. I said I love you in my head, but I could only say "I like you too Micheal. I like you too much" He said "good!"

Good. Brilliant. Wonderful. Spectacular! I want to tell him I love him. I will. I don't want to waste this feeling. It would be a tragedy and Micheal should hear it. Everyday. I'm going to vow to say it to him every day. Don't forget to tell him. And in the future, if everything turns to shit and reading this is embarrassing (I don't give a shit if it's cringe!!! and you shouldn't either) and you and Micheal break up (you better not he is the greatest human being alive!) remember this feeling because it was worth it. It was so worth it. I can't wait to kiss him again. He is my favourite person.

Will can't read anymore, so he places the book back where he found it and takes the remains of Wally's breakfast to the kitchen. The oats are stubborn, and Will scrubs them off, but it's hard, and his wrist starts to hurt, then his elbow and shoulder and chest and as he stares in the sink at congealed porridge, looking half-digested, Will sees Wally's thoughts for the first time, and they are entirely foreign. He doesn’t remember the bowl breaking against the floor.

Brian announces he is engaged. It's the only reason Will agrees to go along with their Friday tradition but, with delight, decides he won't buy Brian a single drink. 

Will drives, and Brian has his mouth shut in the back seat until his fourth round when he asks, all loose with his tongue and embarrassingly loud, "how big is everyone's dick?"

Will fumes by himself in their camped booth. Hannibal is sitting on the other side, staring at them both as if waiting for the first to combust. "Better yet. How many people have you fucked?", he turns his head to Will, waiting for an answer.

"Stop", Will says, a heated whisper, thoughts slipping out like hot steam.

"What was that, Graham? Because I didn't wait for marriage like you, you did well for yourself there. Very proper. I wouldn't know what that's like because I've lost count of how much pussy I've had".

"I don't doubt that", Will says, taking another drink.

"So when I met Bridget. I knew she was the one. Cause our sex is cosmic. I wonder what proper, let's wait till marriage sex feels like?"

"We didn't wait", Will says and rage bubbles and spits, finding ways out through an eye twitch or a muscle spasm in his forearms, and when he looks at Hannibal, it's like looking at someone willing him on, waiting and wanting for the burst.

"You know what, Graham, that's great. Good for you", Brian says, drunk with sarcasm, salivating and landing spittle on the side of Will's face. "Try before you buy, what I always say", and he laughs so hard beer goes everywhere, dripping down on Will lap. It's warm, and it's the sensation of disgust.

"I feel real sorry for your fiancé", Will scoffs, and because he has had enough whiskey, says, "you'll last less time it'd take you to keep an up erection".

"Grim Graham has some teeth after all".

"You think I give a shit about you and your insignificant sex life? You are an immature child Brian. You are an irritation, an annoyance."

"Just man-up, and say you are jealous. I see you Graham. You are just a miserable asshole who probably gets off on the thought of being someone like me— Because I am free. You are stuck in your little suburban nightmare, and I have found the woman of my dreams. What do you have? Fucking— Licking shit off Sutcliffe's shoe and fucking overtime! Ppff".

Will's fist is mighty, willed by god forces and hits Brian— hits him and hits him until there is blood on them both, and Brian is taken away, calling Will a brown-nosing little bitch. Will stops listening. Hannibal has Brian by the waist, pulling him outside and just seeing them walk out together is enough to make Will nauseous.

Will dreams his skin is inside out. Everything he touches, touches what should be inside his body. The page of a book tears open his heart, a paper cut too deep and inside a bird leaps free. When he wakes up, he has a headache and the urge to throw up, a pounding in his belly. Brian must have punched him back. He can't remember much.

Hannibal is in the driver's seat watching him, and it’s the best kind of Deja Vu and Will smiles a bloody smile when Hannibal brushes a lock of hair from his brow, covered in sweat. 

"You may have a fever. I’d say it’s likely the adrenaline", Hannibal says with a hand on his forehead, checking his temperature. It's clinical. Will can't see him in the streetlamp-broken darkness. Even the Moon isn't a friend to Will, hidden behind clouds.

"Brian?" Hannibal says and Will can't tell where to look.

"I don't give a fuck about Brian. He doesn't understand anything". Will says, suddenly so tired.

"It must have hurt you".

"It pissed me off is what it did".

"That he misunderstood or that he was accurate?"

Will starts hyperventilating, getting harder and harder to keep this racket inside, a crash of bent and dented percussion, louder it grows, a feral thing thrashing up his throat.

"How do you see me?" He asks, desperate to know if Hannibal can hear his awful music. "Don't be polite. Please. I can't take polite, not from you".

Hannibal thinks with a thumb rubbing over his oath. "Because we are friends?" He says, and Will nods his head yes— yes to everything. He takes Hannibal's hand and pulls up his sleeve. It's still red and tender, a young promise, and as Will admires this perfect circle, he says in confirmation, in a return of grace, "because we are friends. A friend to speak with, however small or grotesque."

It starts to rain inside and out. His eyes sting with unshed tears. Unblinking, he looks to Hannibal, and then the Moon must nudge itself all the way up there in the sky, lighting up the whites of Hannibal's eyes. They are mournful. Candles at mass lit from within.

"I see regret", Hannibal says.

"Do you regret anything?" Will is shaking, the rumble of the rainfall enough to drown out the sound of his voice.

"If I did, it would mean I acted against my desires".

"And you always act on your desires?"

"I couldn't live with myself If I didn't".

Hannibal is so still— so much like the night. It should feel strange to caress his blistered skin, but the dark makes it bearable. 

"I think there is something wrong with me". His chest hurts.

"There is nothing wrong with you, Will".

"How can you say that when you can see?"

"What do I see? Tell me, Will. Tell me anything".

"That I am regretful". He looks at his Mickey Mouse key chain, and the feeling grows tenfold.

"If you were to act on your desires in this moment, Will, what would you do?"

"I don't know; I don't know, I don't know, I don't know", he chants to drum out the sound of ache, a pummeling noise. It bangs, hard and loud and shoots out of his skin, right where Hannibal places a hand on the back of his neck.

"I think I might know how to make you feel better".

"How?" Will asks, terrified of the answer.

"If I say that, you are also accurate. Brian is immature. That his sexual insecurities are rooted in a masculinity complex, most likely trauma-based, after the suicide of his homosexual brother and parental, emotional neglect". Will laughs a bloody laugh, tastes it between his teeth.

"A small justice, then", Will says, comforted and wooed by Hannibal's nighttime eyes.

"I thought that violent outburst was your small justice?" Hannibal says.

Will thinks then says, "it was deserved".

"How did it make you feel? To hurt him like that?"

"It felt... good".

There is a caress; Will closes his eyes to it, feels the pull of his hair. "I should get you home, Will", Hannibal says, but it sounds like it's coming from outside.

"No one is home", Will says, and he wants to cry, for the boy left in empty houses.

"What about Winston?"

"We left him with the neighbours. I'm to get him tomorrow morning".

"Then what do you want to do?”

Will open his eyes, the soberest he has been all evening, and with thoughts of regret and desire, Will looks to Hannibal and asks, "Will you stay with me?"

Hannibal pulls away and starts the engine. They drive down unlit streets, and Will points Hannibal outside of town, where it's easier to see the stars. By the tree line, they stop, and Will wants to take in the air.

Outside is nature's silence. Will is a boy, sneaking out at night to watch the nighttime animals. He makes a bed of grass and warm earth, waiting for sunrise.

Hannibal joins him, a friend, to explore the woods with and climb rocks and through a stream, sun-dried, and then they'd find food somewhere, steal it if they can and leave apple cores between tree roots. 

But he never had that type of friend—a companion to walk with him through the night.

"We seem to be nowhere". Hannibal says.

"This place reminds me of summers with my father. He had a cabin, and then nothing for miles".

"You seem like a boy here".

"How is that?"

"There is a look in your eye. It's not there all the time. But it’s there".

"What kind of look?" Will smiles at the absurdity as if Hannibal can see in the dark. He can hear his footfalls in the grass as they approach closer. A twig snaps a broken sound he thinks comes from his mouth as if his musical is breaking free. The nothingness around him makes it easier.

Hannibal stands before him, a spectre, a pitch-black outline of anyone, but when he speaks again, Will paints his face with his thoughts, drawing into that silhouette Hannibal's face all from memory as he says, "it is wild. I don’t even think you know it’s there". That makes Will laugh out loud.

They don't walk far. Will falls asleep as Hannibal drives him home, an aria plays faintly on the radio.

When he wakes up, he is in his bed and smells pine and dirt in his hair. Beside him on the table is a note.

  
Dinner is at 7:30

The house by the river

All Will can think about for the rest of the day is being carried to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos and lovely comments. I will continue to write even though it was ambitious to think I could update this weekly. However, I like my send off so I’ll keep it even though it’s a blatant lie. 
> 
> For those who are following this story, I hope you feel things are starting to happen. I get a bit worried things go too fast and end up not knowing what to write because nothing his happening lol. Also, I really struggled to think of a possible reason Hannibal would use public transport. I hope this chapter provided some mystery and not just outright -  
> \- this is jumping the shark vibes. 
> 
> Till next week.


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